About Us

Coming from lived experience, our founder Marc Burrows wanted to find a new way of working with people who use drugs, as there seemed to be a disconnect between addiction treatment and public health in South Carolina. At that time, the health and well-being of people who inject drugs was not a focus in our states' addiction treatment landscape. In fact, our state's  drug and alcohol department was even quoted in the news saying "advocating for needle exchanges is not an agency priority". 

 Marc found this to be odd, considering people who inject drugs make up the largest group of new Hepatitis C cases and are associated with HIV and other bacterial and infectious diseases as well. He asked why our addiction treatment and prevention industry was not including drug user health in its work. Why was this overlap being ignored?

In an attempt to offer a solution, Marc started acquiring supplies like condoms, syringes, and other items used to reduce the spread of disease, and began giving them out in his community. Instantly, he saw the effect this had on the people he was serving, since being met as someone who injects drugs with no judgement, discrimination, or coercion is not the typical interaction. Every interaction felt magical and life changing for both sides. Thus, the first syringe services program in South Carolina was born. 

Since then, the goal of Challenges Inc has remained the same: stop the spread of preventable and unnecessary infectious diseases and other healthcare issues by providing evidence-based harm reduction tools to people who use drugs in South Carolina. 

Today, our services include much more than our humble beginnings. We provide testing for HIV and Hepatitis C with linkage to free treatment for both. We offer referrals to substance use disorder treatment and help individuals navigate the treatment system, and more recently have added a low barrier MOUD option through a wonderful partnership with like minded professionals. We provide low barrier access to naloxone and give out hundreds of doses of the life saving drug every month, and we do it all from a beautiful little bus. Check it out on the Locations page. Maybe most importantly though, we are a creator of change for how our community views people who use drugs and other marginalized communities, and we hope to continue improving the lives of the people we serve and health outcomes for our community at large.